Mod: Ulm Reborn v.1.7b - Updated 14th June 2009

[Sombre]

PREVIEW IMAGE.




--------------------------

Summary: A New LA nation which thematically replaces Ulm, Black Forest but can now be played alongside it. The malediction is replaced by a miraculous event, the Aufklarung (enlightenment). Ulm turns away from encroaching evil and the Iron Faith becomes the focus of the nation. Includes 3 national summons and 1 new priest spell.

Strengths:
1. Powerful priests, extra holy magic and great preaching
2. Numerous sacreds suited to different bless strats
3. Magical diversity via summonable casters
4. Black Priests may spawn hordes of free penitent
5. Drain immune White Priest/Acolyte

Weaknesses:
1. Recruitable paths restricted to earth and minor astral
2. Resource and capital centric nation
3. Lacks light or missile troops
4. Slow moving armies
5. Vulnerable to battle magic

-----------------------------------------


-- version 1.7

-- TWEAK - Sturmheld and Sternheld now H1 priests

-- TWEAK - White Priests no longer martial leaders

-- FIX - Fixed Host of Aufklarung cost

-- TWEAK - Gave Black Steel Helmet and Black Steel Kite Shield to appropriate commanders

-- TWEAK - Added the CBM Warhorse hoof and used it for cavalry units instead of hoof. I agree with that CBM change and want to unify this vanilla mod and the CBM version

-- TWEAK - Removed armour piercing from spirit Hammers and reduced damage, making them useful almost only against demons and undead, which is fine

-- TWEAK - Removed some of the copystatting



--- version 1.6

-- FIX - Gave Reborn Lord a helment

-- TWEAK - Increased precision for punish the unjust spell


UPDATE TO 1.5 for 3.15 basegame

This update doesn't add much in the way of content, it just brings Ulm Reborn up to date with 3.15 and the changes made to regular MA and LA Ulm. I think 1.6 might not be far away if people come to the thread with suggestions. It's basically a finished nation though.

-- Several changes to descriptions and flavour, based on 3.15 update to MA and LA Ulm

-- Checked for conflicts against CBM1.21, LA Jomon Broken

-- White Priests no longer attract penitent

-- Black Priests given more chance of E2, differentiated from regular Ulm Black Priests a bit, no forgebonus here

-- Neugeboren Lord and troops stats tweaked, given new White Halberd weapon, a counterpart to the new Guardians of MA Ulm

-- Forgebonus of white priests up to 15, same as black priests of LA Ulm

-- Hoch-Hammer leadership reduced

-- Production bonus in all forts reduced to 20%

-- Stern/Sturmheld get better mr

-- Sturmheld only summonable by H4, ie prophet

-- An extra gem for 4 gems standard LA starting income

-- Sternkind get plate cuirass armour

-- Added new Host of the Aufklarung mass Sternkind summon

-- Changed White Hammer into more of a holy weapon

-- Reduced black zwei gcost to 14

[Shovah32]

Seems different. The fact that their best priest is holy 2, they only have 1 path of magic(earth, goes to level 3), that they only have 4 good units(all high resource cost, 3 are sacred) and no starting gem income seems a little weak.

The theme is pretty nice and i can see some blesses(e9n4 maybe) working very well.

[Sombre]

Their best priest should be H3. Capitol only white priest. If not that's my error.

The balance isn't even vaguely final. I just thought I'd get a download out for people so they can get in on the creation of the nation. If a unit seems under/overpowered let me know and I'll make changes.

I think I messed up on the starting gem income. I thought I'd given them some earth. But yeah, they're going to be a priest/bless nation. They also spawn quite a lot of sacred penitents which are more powerful versions of flagellents.

[Shovah32]

I thought they spawned something but never checked. THe E3 Guy is holy2 but i actually guessed he was meant to be holy3(they have another holy2 priest so...). I'll playtest in about 2 hours.

[Sombre]

Doh, I guess I didn't save changes the last time I was editing the dm. Fixed a couple of errors (such as the priest and gem income) and I'll upload v0.35 momentarily.

[SlipperyJim]

Nuts! I had already started a game with v0.3!

I'll interrupt my current game to give this one a whirl. It should be interesting. Thanks, Sombre! :-D

[Sombre]

No problem. I wouldn't go for a long drawn out game with the nation because they're still going through balancing changes, getting new units etc. Of course a lot of those will work with a saved game from an old version, but some of it might well require you to start over.

Thanks for playtesting. I look forward to your comments.

[Shovah32]

Since blesses are expensive AND their sacreds need good scales how about a bunch of national summons(just an idea)?

[SlipperyJim]

Sombre said:
No problem. I wouldn't go for a long drawn out game with the nation because they're still going through balancing changes, getting new units etc. Of course a lot of those will work with a saved game from an old version, but some of it might well require you to start over.

Thanks for playtesting. I look forward to your comments.

Okay, here's the quick-and-dirty review of v0.35....

I created a quick game on the Silent Seas (wraparound) map. For speed & simplicity, I selected one Easy Defensive AI opponent: Desert Tombs C'tis. I wasn't looking for a challenge here; I just wanted to try out the mod.

Pretender Design: Since I have all of these yummy sacred units, I wanted a good bless. But Ulm also requires good scales. I chose an imprisoned N9E5 Great Mother. Regenerating Berserker Guardians? Yes, please! Scales were Order 3, Productivity 3, Growth 1, and Drain 3. Extra points went into dominion strength.

(No, I haven't even attempted any magical research yet. Black steel all the way!)

In no particular order, here are my thoughts:

• Sacred Guardians and Black Knights rock hard. Oh, yes....
• As usual, Ulm is resource-starved. This problem is made even worse by the lousy 5-Admin fort that you get at the capital. Building up a decent Ulmish army takes a long time with 5 Admin and only three border provinces.
• The killer priest-power is very very nice. White Priests are very good, indeed.
• But they're old. I guess that's thematic -- it seems that nearly every LA nation has old mages & priests -- but it sure is inconvenient.
• The freespawn Penitents aren't killer, but they can still be quite useful. And they're free! What's not to like?
• Oh, that's what. For some reason, all of my Penitents appeared with a random affliction. Is there any particular reason for that?
• The Black Acolyte doesn't seem to be very useful. I might as well recruit a Black Priest instead.

So, with that in mind, here are a few things I'd change:

• Maybe add some random F1 to some of the mages? Fire works very well with the theme. Just look at Marignon....
• Please give Ulm a decent fort, especially at the capitol. Massive resource costs + low Admin values = very very slow recruiting.
• Maybe the Black Acolyte could be stealthy? Stealth preaching seems thematic, and it would give me a reason to recruit them.
• Take away the Penitents' afflictions, unless there's a particular reason to have them. If so, please explain it to the player.
• Speaking about the Penitents: Stop the freespawning. Instead, how about a Summon Allies command?
• Finally, maybe some (or all) of the mages could be Drain-immune like the MA Ulm smiths? Drain seems very thematic for Iron Faith Ulm, and it gives the player a way to recover some of the insane points that he'll spend on Productivity and blessings...

My overall impression of the theme is very positive. Iron Faith Ulm looks like it could be a lot more fun than Black Forest Ulm. Please take all of my ideas as suggestions, not complaints.

Thanks for doing this! I've attached my save file, just in case anyone else wants to look at it.

[Sombre]

- Well marignon is all about purging sinners with fire - they are based on the myth of witch burning and the actions of the catholic inquisition. Ulm Reborn does have an inquisition of sorts, but it's more the kind where,... well,... they lock you up in walking armour and brainwash you. I don't want to give them fire on the mage priests, but I could give them national summon access to fire. Maybe some forge based stuff.

- I thought the starting fort would be the same as LA Ulm's but I guess that got cleared. I find the fort type bit of modding pretty confusing to be honest.. but I'll give them a better starting fort. As for the forts they should build in other places, like forest etc - I'd love suggestions (with the fort type numbers if possible).

- Right now the Black Acolyte is just a cheap way of ferrying troops and they're the only priest that isn't cap only. You're right they're much worse than the black priests (their domsummon is much less frequent) - I'll make them very cheap and stealthy sounds good too.

- The penitent's afflictions are a leftover from the flagellents that they're based on. It wasn't intended and I'll fix it.

- For now I like the freespawning. It frees up the priests to preach and do priesty things. It also encourages dom strength. I'll see in the future if it's too random though.

- They might also have lost Ulm's 20(25?)% prod bonus in all forts. Either way, they're getting a resource boost in the update. They are a cap dwelling nation (their recruitment screen is more than halved outside the cap) so they need it to crank out resources to make up for bad start positions and so on.

- Because there's no mod command for immunity to drain I'd have to copystats something that already had it. That something wouldn't have inquisition bonus and might have other stuff we don't want like armour and weapons. I'll look into getting drain immunity on the white priest and he'll lose the inquisition bonus. It might not be possible to get it right though.

- All 'white' units are getting max age boosts to represent their new lease on life.

Your comments are very helpful, particularly the way you set them out. I'd love to hear more like that.